Advertisers have been pulling their ads from YouTube videos, causing major issues for those that regularly use the platform. Mainstream media outlets, particularly the Wall Street Journal, have led advertisers to believe that their ads have been playing on videos with inappropriate content, such as racism.
However, these videos are put out by channels with a very small following of just a few hundred subscribers. The overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube with a much larger audience, some in the millions, do not feature racist content or titles. Yet these channels are being hit hard by demonetization, meaning the content creators cannot make any money off of the video from ads.
This is also greatly affecting the news channels on YouTube, making it difficult for creators to discuss certain topics. Videos about ISIS or Syria get demonetized, even though they are news stories, but online commentators have also been affected just for discussing these topics.
This issue seems to be hitting progressive news channels the most, which makes it even more of a problem: these channels are able to stay afloat through paid memberships, but also greatly depend on ad revenue to produce more content.
Essentially, YouTube and certain advertisers are turning away from creators based on certain topics featured in video titles or discussed in the video itself. For progressive news channels, this is a huge conflict that could prohibit reporting on important stories.
